They say insects are the food of the future, so why not start getting your taste buds ready now?

They say insects are the food of the future, so why not start getting your taste buds ready now? EatGrub is a UK food company with a unique offering: edible insects.

People across the world get their protein through eating insects, yet we in supposedly avant-garde London are still munching on kale and artisan burgers; well, no more.

The guys behind EatGrub – Shami and Neil – were fuelled by an interest in sustainable, nutritious food, and decided to adapt entomophagy (insect eating) for London palates. Shami knows a thing or two about yummy creepy crawlies: in his previous life as a marketing exec with international charities, he witnessed the sheer excitement of a community in Malawi right before the annual roasting and eating of flying termites. Once he got a taster, he was hooked. Neil, in the meantime, was in London working on TV programmes featuring famous chefs. His interest in exploring new foods was kindled at the tender age of 19 when he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease – a debilitating bowel condition which calls for a selective, enriched diet. “Edible insects are potentially brilliant news for sufferers, thanks to the abundance of nutrients they contain, coupled with their low levels of complex fats,” he says. “It’s a shame that due to Western stigma, I went 11 years without knowing what I was missing…” Neil and Shami got chatting at a party, and the rest is history.

Their online shop caters for all your culinary insect needs: they’ve got energy bars made with cricket powder (“a very nutritious ingredient with an earthy classic coffee taste, without any caffeine”) as well as bags of dried edible crickets, mealworms and grasshoppers – and a recipe book to help you make sense of it all.

But if the prospect of seasoning your dishes with powdered crickets is still a bit daunting, head over to Shami and Neil’s two final Thai-themed supper clubs on August 27 and September 24 (both £33, Farang, 72 Highbury Park, N5 2XE). As the duo says, “We don’t think insect-eating will be a quick revolution – but we are willing to change minds one tasty revelation at a time.”